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Meet Kang Soon-ja, who immigrated to the United States from Korea at 26 years old.

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"She felt that no one knew of Korea or its culture."

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Meet the Founder

Kasey Lee, the founder and president of Echo Initiative, is an Asian American high school student from Southern California. Growing up, she witnessed firsthand the hardships that her beloved grandmother experienced because of her status as an elderly immigrant. As she began to develop a passion for political activism and effecting social change, she wanted to create her own nonprofit organization for those who faced similar struggles as her grandmother. In the summer of 2022, she founded Echo Initiative to offer elderly immigrants across the nation the opportunity to voice the challenges they experience and share their stories.

About the
Initiative.

Questions?

Feel free to contact us at any time with any inquiries about our organization.

Our Mission

Echo Initiative is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization that serves to provide elderly immigrants with a platform to voice their stories and struggles. Through interviewing senior citizens about their lives as an immigrant and their journey to the United States, we have given them the power to speak up for themselves and for the challenges they face.

The injustices that elderly immigrants endure on a daily basis are not spoken about enough. The hate crimes they encounter are rooted in ignorance and indifference. Further, senior citizens often lack the power and means to defend themselves from these injustices and thus cannot stop them from occurring. Echo Initiative aims to protect these individuals from the increasing rates of hate crimes by fostering compassion for their community and educating our society about their challenges.

Get Involved

Your help matters! If you are someone who has a story to share, please feel free to reach out to us—we want to hear it. Our goal is to echo everyone's stories.

Members have the opportunity to interview and write a story about elderly immigrants in their community. These stories will be published on our website after they are submitted and reviewed by our board.

Donations to the organization will fund senior homes, elderly communities, and individual senior citizens in need of items such as wheelchairs, blankets, and other necessities.

In order to promote compassion for elderly immigrants we must first start by sharing their stories. Here are the published records of their lives.